i.am+ announces the dial

Announcement

Today, will.i.am and the Deutsche Telekom announced their new partnership at the Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona. They teamed up to bring the new generation of will.i.am's smart device to the market. The new device is called "dial" and features some great enhancements over the previous device, the PULS, which released in 2014.

In this post, we want to sum up what we know so far.

Update

The dial will be out Firday, 13th May and is now available for pre-order for UK customers! Head over to three.co.uk for more information.

Click here to pre-order directly. You can choose between 2 colors and 2 sizes. Prices start at £24.00 a month.

Camera

The dial features a front-facing camera for quick snapshots or selfies. You can upload your pictures directly to your social media accounts. The camera captures pictures in 2 megapixels.

Music

The dial ships with bluetooth headphones. Music is an integral part of the operating system. A streaming service will be provided. More information on that soon.

AneedA

AneedA is the personal assistant of the dial. You can ask her to play music, look up stock information and much more. Just say "Find for flights from Barcelona to London" and the device fetches the information.

More about AneedA

The operating system, AneedA, is a heavily voice-based system. AneedA is an open platform, which means that developers can develop "skills" to enhance the user experience. For example, you can make your own app work with the voice assistant, and your apps will be accessible system wide and with AneedA, the voice assistant. A store for such skills will be available in the future. A partnership with e.g. Uber exists in the USA. AneedA can read out emails or show your Instagram feed simply by saying "Show me my feed".

The dial works on its own, but it can be connected to your current smartphone and, if the "skill" has been installed, interact with your phone and its apps.

Carriers

Availability

The dial will be available in the UK in on Friday, 13th May. The exclusive network in the UK will be Three.